Negs

Negs are one of the most over-used, and most misunderstood, parts of game. They’re also, unfortunately, why the seduction community has a reputation for being full of douchebags: guys going around insulting women hoping it’ll get them to drop their panties.

But this conception relies on a misunderstanding of what a neg is. A neg isn’t an insult. A neg, rather, is merely the kind of comment that someone who was interested in her wouldn’t make.

For example, take the classic, “Nice nails, are they real?” A typical AFC guy would never do this. He would be so afraid of offending her (and thus losing his chance to sleep with her) that he would only offer the vague compliment. Same with, “Those are great boots! You’re the third girl I’ve seen wearing them tonight!”

Guys screw up by delivering those classic negs as zingers, but a neg doesn’t work if it feels like you’re trying to get one over on her. Instead, “are they real?” is delivered as if you genuinely like her nails, and the boot compliment is delivered in the vein of appreciating how fashionable the target is.

Negs don’t even have to be “negative” – what they’re really doing is negating your own interest. For example, another classic: “You and I would not get along, we’re too alike!” You’re not saying anything bad about her – merely that you’re not interested in dating her.

Another possibility along these lines is, “I wish you were brunette. I’m taking a break from blondes for a while.” There is no conceivable way in which this is an insult, but it does the job of demonstrating your lack of interest. These are “disqualifiers” sure, but they are also negs.

The purpose of your neg is to break the frame of you being just another guy who’s hitting on her, to get around her bitch shield. You are demonstrating that you have not put her on a pedestal just because she’s an attractive woman.

This is very important: Even negs like these need to be reserved from “9s and 10s” – highly attractive women. Model-looking women are constantly besieged with unwanted attention from men, and thus have strong bitch shields.

The reality is that most other women – even most other very attractive women – are constantly being made to feel inadequate about their appearance. Not only, therefore, are these women not standing on pedestals which they need to be knocked off of before you can talk to them, but in fact most of the time they’ll respond much more positively towards the flattery inherent in your attention. It’s nice to be the subject of attention from an attractive member of the opposite sex – don’t make things more complicated than they need to be.